


Survivor on Outpost 3

by Starbase Blake (galaxyostars)



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek - All Media Types, Star Trek: The Next Generation (Movies), Star Trek: Voyager, Starbase 118
Genre: Blood and Injury, Brekkians, Colonial Coalition Marshals Service, Humans, Minor Character Death, Outpost 3, Space Pirates, Starfleet, The Shoals, USS Veritas, alpha quadrant, betazoids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-05-28 06:52:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15043193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galaxyostars/pseuds/Starbase%20Blake
Summary: LtCmdr Sky Blake receives word that an old colleague has failed to check in, and his assignment (in the remote location of the Shoals) has been thus far radio silent. Leaving the USS Veritas behind, Blake travels to Outpost 3 in hopes that the outpost is simply suffering a communications malfunction.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was written as an aside for the UFOP Starbase 118 RPG USS Veritas mission, "The Mother Road". Check out the pbem RPG at starbase118.net!

As soon as Elis forwarded information on the attack of Outpost 3, and that Marshals weren’t touching it because it was “Starfleet property”, she dropped everything and ran for it, against all logic, against protocol. She didn’t wait for the go ahead from Roshanara Rahman (her captain), she didn’t wait for the USS Veritas as backup. When she had the opportunity, she left a note and bolted. Outpost 3 had not been far from the ship’s location - so much so that she counted herself lucky it hadn’t been grazed by the Maelstorm.  
  
[Sky Blake](https://wiki.starbase118.net/wiki/index.php?title=Sky_Blake) had a rocky history with [Brandon Cormac](https://wiki.starbase118.net/wiki/index.php?title=Brandon_Cormac). The human had given her a less then stellar reception - to be expected, given her lack of true credentials, sketchy history and amnesia. He was an investigator, and when nothing turned up on Blake, he was suspicious. It had taken _months_ before they’d developed any kind of trust.  
  
But while Zhou Tai-Sheng was her go-to man for support, backup and all things complicated, Cormac was her partner, her spring-board for all things . . . irrational. But it wasn't always like that.

* * *

  ** _239210.23 (two years ago)  
_ **

“The CP want us to start working together “like rational adults”.”

Sky barely glanced at him when he'd sat in the chair across from her, mug in hand and out of uniform. She was enjoying her dinner, responding to Marshal requests for reports – two of them, neither of which had really warranted anything more than minor attention from her, but given the relationship between the Marshals and Starfleet and how it was still tenuous at best, bowing to their whims seemed to be the appropriate course of action at present.

“Given our roles here are a hair-width away from being the same, I can't say I'm overly surprised.”

“You think they'd have thought of that when they assigned you here.”

Sky huffed, putting down her fork and leaning forward to rest her forearms on the table. “You know what? They're right. We've been at each others throats for months now without end. So if I'm stepping on your Special Operations toes, let me know, and I'll go on my merry way. Otherwise, we need to determine exactly what each of us is supposed to be doing here.”

It was a rather delicate fued. When she'd been brought aboard, Blake had been assigned as strategic operations – meanwhile, the Veritas already had a special operations officer in Cormac (also referred to as their “intelligence officer”, for whatever good that did). He was, despite citing her lack of experience and suitability in a Starfleet position, a bit threatened by her. Every word between them generally resulted in some snarky response from Cormac.

She'd like to think that part of this was because of an overall confusion as to whom was supposed to be doing what. A joke, she imagined, that Captain Carrero had enjoyed playing on them as if to test their ability to work together. Cormac had been a Starfleet ranger prior to his assignment to the Veritas, having worked in the Shoals longer than pretty much all of them. Though his current title implied a tie to Starfleet Intelligence, it was far from it. He collected the Starfleet reports about what was happening outside the region and assessed how they'd impact their operations. He was an investigator at heart, unhappy when he felt he didn't have all the little pieces of information to explain anything and everything, and though he might have stretched the rules himself form time to time, he was a very by-the-book kind of person when it came to working with the Marshals – again, having had the most experience doing so out of the crew.

The difference? While Cormac was assessing political climates and gathering information based upon what Starfleet could surmise and then piecing it all together to make a report for the Veritas, Blake was coordinating with any and all non-Starfleet, Marshal-based officers to work through pirate attacks. _'You track, he investigates,'_ As Zhou had so aptly put it.

By rights, they should have been best buds by now, joined at the hip and essentially reading each others minds – or, at least, that's what Carrero likely would have hoped in a not-so-fairy-tale manner. Instead, they were at odds.

It wasn't Sky's fault though. Not technically.

When he'd not responded to her after a few moments, she addressed him again, picking up her fork and going back to her food. “Don't look so morbid, Cormac. Your face will freeze that way.”

He blinked, taking another swig of his mug. “Our offices are on different decks.”

“That's correct.”

“We should probably change that.”

“I agree.”

There was a pause.

“So am I coming to your deck, or are you coming to mine?” He asked genuinely.

“How about we just negotiate a whole new deck and work forward from there.”


	2. Chapter 2

_**Present day** _

Seeing the small station in tatters, even after having been on a freighter in the middle of a tetryon storm, was scary. The outpost's power was a minimal capacity, life support was down on the control deck, and she'd counted five deceased crew due to station damage and intruders.

This had been a pirate attack.

She'd spent the last half hour checking for survivors, counting the dead, dodging electrical hazards, with her phaser up. So far, no signs of life, as confirmed by the shuttle's readouts before she'd bravely boarded the decrepit outpost. And she was starting to lose hope.

Fully intending on restoring life support to the control deck just to confirm her fear of his death, Blake had started to question how exactly she was supposed to tell her friends that Brandon Cormac had died in a freaking pirate attack. The man excelled at survival – it was his training as a ranger, knowing every nook and cranny in any place he was assigned, choosing to avoid conflict instead of drawing attention to himself.

 _He wouldn't be on the control deck_ , she thought to herself. That's the first place the Kos'karii would have hit – hence why it now lacked any breathable air.

Blake shined her torch around again, moving away from the control panel and looking for access hatches. He hadn't been strewn along a deck anywhere, and no one had been unidentifiable so far. She'd stepped through the hatch, leaving it open. Though there didn't seem to be any living person on the small station, it was honestly one of those times where she'd wished she'd brought a personal shield with her. Just this once.

“Cormac?”

She maneuvered herself around a live hanging electrical conduit, assessing both her cover options and hiding places. If he'd been injured, if he'd lost consciousness in one of these areas, there was no way she'd be able to hear him. She'd have to check every one of them.

But today, she was lucky. Out of nowhere, a phaser discharged, missing her shoulder narrowly and causing her to throw herself behind one of the aforementioned pieces of debris that would work as cover. Despite not being in it's way anymore, it still fired to where she'd been standing.

“Hold your fire!” She yelled. “I'm here to help!”

The phaser stopped. Off towards where it'd come from, something clanged against the deck plating, the sound of someone perhaps slumping to the ground following.

It was a risk, but she holstered her phaser, carefully stepping out with one of her hands raised, the other directing her torch forward.

“I'm here to help,” She repeated.

She'd inched forward and reached the bulkhead the phaser's owner had slumped behind, and she'd almost fallen over in relief.

There, covered in soot, dirt, blood and only the gods knew what else, was Brandon Cormac. Not 100%, but alive.

“Noree, Cormac, I thought you were dead.”

He wheezed a laugh, letting Sky tend to him, submitting to scans from her tricorder with his head resting up against the broken bulkhead. “Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to see you. But the _Veritas_ is supposed to be lightyears away. The hell are you doing here?”

“Elis was worried.”

“So the XO of Starfleet's major presence in the Shoals decides to come running because my ex-boyfriend was _worried_?”

“Well, the whole gang would be here if they could.” She snapped her tricorder shut. “We have to get you back to my ship.”

“Wait,” He coughed, stopping her from tapping her combadge. “You check for survivors?”

“Escape pods were launched. Those still on board are dead. I'm sorry.”

“We had a station compliment of twenty people. How many bodies?

She hesitated.

“ _How many bodies?_ ” Cormac repeated.

“I counted eighteen.”

And as he processed the number, she had her small ship beam them away from what remained of the science outpost.


	3. Chapter 3

Once she'd managed to sponge off everything that covered him, she'd finally believed him when he said his injuries looked worse than they actually were. He'd been stuck on the outpost for ten days, working tirelessly to try and keep the place together as he awaited for rescue. No one had responded to his distress call, and it was a miracle that Elis had even realized that there hadn't been a status report during that time. 

He'd been rationing everything, now suffering from exhaustion and dehydration, but the worst of his injuries had been a serious flesh wound caused by his own stupidity – an electrical burn from a console, he'd explain. 

Blake left him to sleep in the cabin as she sent word back to Star Station Esperance, scanning for escape pods. There had been three pods entirely empty, potentially launched due to malfunction during Cormac's efforts to keep the small station afloat. But a fourth had an occupant. 

She wasn't keen on mentioning it to Cormac. 

“So Marshals didn't do squat?”

She turned in her chair, catching Cormac pulling a shirt over his chest as he entered the cockpit, still rather stiff and sluggish. He'd been asleep for a good ten hours.

“Starfleet property with Marshal personnel,” She pointed out. “They didn't really want to touch it.”

Cormac scoffed. “Probably thought there was a magic mirror involved.”

It was a small reference to the 'mirror incident' that had occurred a couple years back. She gave a quiet laugh.

“I wouldn't be surprised.” She paused, looking over him. “How are you feeling?”

“Honestly? Not great. I was sent here to look after twenty people and they're dead.”

She looked down at her console, eyes closing for a brief moment. He slid into the seat next to her, taking the news as well as he could, given the circumstances. If there was one thing she was glad for, it was that Humans felt deeply about loss of life. 

“Twenty one years in this gig,” Cormac huffed, breaking out of his stillness and rubbing at his forehead. “As soon as I get back to Esperance, I'm calling this Starfleet thing quits. Marshals, Starfleet, Federation verses Colonial Coalition nonsense . . . I'm might hitch a ride Risa and live there.”

“Cormac . . .”

“I'm being serious, Blake.” He said. “I can't help but wonder what the hell I'm doing with my life. We put up with crap like this from left, right and centre and get nothing back to show for it. Carrero dies and we're strewn in eight different directions, separated and blamed with barely any time to tell our families we're being reassigned. Then here, being attacked by pirates, spending over a week waiting for a rescue that never comes because neither side can decide whether its their problem.” He shook his head. “I'm forty years old. I want to settle down, Stratop, start a family. I could have died on that station.”

“But you didn't,” She pointed out. 

“And it’s dumb luck that I didn’t. Dumb luck that I’d managed to survive long enough for someone to reach me.” He shook his head again, shrugged. “I’m tired of all of this.”

Blake looked down at the console again. “Where would you go?”

“Sure as hell not going back to Federation space, if that's what you're asking.”

“You'd stay in the Shoals?”

He considered the idea for a moment. “It's home. Set up shop on Shadow's Edge, head to the Marshals – if they'd take me. I want to settle down. Maybe ask Elis to take me back.”

It sucked, but that was the reality of this life. She'd imagined that she'd once been on the same path – had lived that path, for better or worse. She didn't regret what she remembered. Part of her wondered whether she too should go back to that lifestyle, of being away from Starfleet and instead setting roots into something more 'local'.

But Cormac leaving? This was something she'd have to swallow. She'd been holding onto the old crew as if they were her last life-line, clinging on desperately and jumping at the chance to contact them. There was nothing wrong with that, of course, but neglecting her current crew? Subconsciously writing them off as inferior to the others? That _wasn't_ okay. 

“You'll let me know where you end up?”

“'Course.” He said.

“Even if I ask you to maybe look after my kids every once in a while?”

He chuckled. “Sure. If if comes to that.”


End file.
